Memento Mori
by phriendly11
Summary: and now, the thrilling and twisty CHAPTER 8
1. Default Chapter

******** Memento Mori: A Serial Alias Fanfiction ********  
  
********CHAPTER ONE ********  
  
  
  
Fists jammed into his pockets, Vaughn waits around a corner, shadows filling his vision and nervousness wrenching his gut. He's breaking protocol being here, putting himself in an incredibly vunerable position, but hell, he's worried. Worrying was something he'd started to get used to in the past two and a half months, and he knew it wasn't good for his health or for his career.  
  
He leans against cool masonry and half-closes his eyes a moment, wondering what to do next. Surveillance caught Sydney walking into Credit Dauphine over three hours ago, and when she hadn't called from Europe at check in the leaden feeling in his stomach that something was wrong, really truly wrong, began to make itself known, and he was afraid that somehow she had gotten herself in a shit load of trouble again.  
  
Vaughn runs a hand through his hair and blinks. He's been waiting for a noise, an indication that she would be coming soon, and having some wild story to tell and he could admonish himself for second guessing her. Just because she's a woman and looks soft he knows she isn't-- Sydney can hold her own, and he is fully aware of it. Fingers clench and he remembers her crying, looking up with those sad, lost eyes. Eyes he sometimes got lost in, if even only a moment, and it only led to a further complicated feeling closely related to failure.  
  
The night, filled with sounds of the city and distant commotion of people, is pierced by the ringing of his cell phone. He answers mid first ring, finding his fingers moist with perspiration- Jesus, nerves- with a curt Vaughn."  
  
" Got her exiting."  
  
" Good." He presses end without asking stupid questions about her apparent safety. Did SD-6 find out that she was a double agent? Could a surveillance team even tell by watching her come out the front doors? Would it be written in the way she walked; would there be a finger missing or some gruesome, telltale sign that SHE HAD BEEN CAUGHT and made some sick example of?  
  
Breathing heavily, he waits. Sounds nonexistent until the ebbing sound of what might be heels on pavement-- Sydney's heels, God, please let her be okay. He doesn't care about the clock and the pictures and what she found in Europe. He cares to see her face and know there is nothing hiding there, there is no fear beneath the surface, he wants to ask for himself " are you okay" before knowing why she never called to check in with him.  
  
He notices movement out the corner of his eye and yes, now, he's sure it's her. And an irrational nervousness expounds and runs rampant through his veins, like she's some high school goddess and he's a second rate sophomore, reaching for the unattainable-- and wait, his anxiety, he knows, is completely irrelevant, unprofessional, and it has to stop right now.Breathe in and out Vaughn, his inner voice says. In and out and in a moment she will round the corner and--  
  
She does. He steps from the darkness and grabs her arm. She turns, ready for attack, he's sure, and as soon as his face comes into view he smiles -- a smile he hopes conveys that professional concern he is going for here. He has only surprise when her face only amplifies shock and a fist comes towards his face.  
  
" Hey, " She says, " let go of me."  
  
Avoiding the fist and removing his hand proves to be difficult, and he nearly loses his balance in the process. He scans her face, looking for a reason for her overt surprise and near violent attempt on his face.  
  
" Sydney?" He says, and can hear the concern in his voice; it's a nagging, definitely unprofessional, desperate kind of tone.  
  
" How do you know my name? Who are you? What do you want?" Eyes reduce to slivers: she is suspicious. Vaughn swallows, unprepared for this, not sure what it means. Deduction tells him she's trying to protect them, trying to feign a lack of recognition, in case they are being watched by someone at SD-6.  
  
" I'm sorry I had to grab you like that, Sydney, but when you didn't call I got nervous." He drops his voice to a whisper, looking around himself in a covert fashion.  
  
Sydney is shaking her head, brown hair falling over shoulders, breathing through her nose and her nostrils are beginning to flare. With some surprise he realizes that she is scared; that she is on the offensive, and if he didn't watch it she would be coming at him with another punch worthy of a prize winning fighter.  
  
" Explain yourself to me, and tell me in a sentence why I might know you. I don't recognize you, I certainly don't remember having to call you or ever speaking with you before. I'm serious. I want to know who you are and why you are looking at me like you know me." She's keeping her voice banker- steady, it's professional, not clouded by emotion: tough as nails Sydney at her best.  
  
And with a moment of deduction, Vaughns mind moving in crazy, frightened circles he knows she isn't in the midst of an act or trying to pretend she didn't know him because he was breaking protocol. He breathes in, and out, slow, steadying breaths as he realizes with increasing certainty that Sydney Bristow has no idea who he is.  
  
And the thought of that is terrifying.  
  
******** end of chapter one ******** 


	2. memento mori: chapter two

******CHAPTER TWO*******  
  
  
  
Sydney awakes disoriented, in the dark, her head throbbing uncontrollably. Sharp lacerating pain, originating at the rear of her skull, is making its way through to her eyeballs. Shit. Hangover? What happened....slowly images come into fuzzy focus, an alley, the weird guy that grabbed her, going in on 3 inch heels with a solid mawashi geri kick and slipping- either on oil or water or the greasy remains of long ago discarded trash.  
  
She sits up, unmindful of the pain in her temples that makes her clench her teeth. Where the hell is she? Shapes materialize in the darkened room, and in a chair oposite her sat none other than they man that had tried to grab her in the alley.  
  
" Who are you?" The sound of her voice causes further torture to her head. She's beginning to notice a dull ache in her tailbone, too, right where she landed on hard asphalt.  
  
" Sydney, lie down. You hit your head pretty badly when you went into kick me. What level of blackbelt are you, anyways? Jesus, it was about to be a painful experience for me, but-"  
  
" Who says I even know Karate?" She lays down despite intuition telling her to get up and fight, but she does manage indignation in her reply. Feign submission, her mind orders: make him think that you trust him, and when least expected, strike.  
  
" Sydney-" there is a testing tone in his voice, and she looks at him in the darkness, his face framed in shadows, with features blurry and unfamiliar. He continues, emotion now absent from his tone. " Would you like some aspirin?"  
  
She almost believes what he told her in the alley-- that is, that he somehow knows her, that she has worked with him in the past " Yes." She says, morose, confused, and in a great deal of discomfort. As soon as he leaves she's up, trying to ignore the pain and move in unfamiliar darkness. Of course he isn't telling the truth, he's probably a crackpot or worse...an agent from another agency trying to, what-- kill her?  
  
Sydney runs into an end table and mutters a curse under her breath. The room she's in isn't a hotel room, it appears to be a bedroom, possibly his. Making her way to the window, she draws up the shade as silently as possible to realize with dismay that she is on an upper floor, and there is no fire escape in sight.  
  
Tiptoing across the floor-- hell, where did he put her shoes-- she contemplates flicking the light switch but doesn't. Instead she makes it to the door and opens it, making a furtive glance down a hallway and into a dimly lit living room. The first board she steps on creaks, and she winces, sure he's heard it and will come flying down the hall from around some unseen corner. Heart pounding in her ears, the deafening sound of blood rushing to her head and making her temples throb even more- if that were possible- she waits ten seconds before moving. Lightening quick her stocking feet cross over the hardwood floor, front door in sight, her freedom almost within reach--" I was actually wondering how long you would take to try to find a way out of here." She freezes before attempting to bolt and is stopped, abruptly, by his hand on her arm.  
  
" Now, Sydney-" She swings, misses, swings again, and hits the desired target, the soft part of his temple. He blinks, looks genuinely surprised-- an expression that he had worn earlier, in the alley.  
  
" I don't know what SD-6 did to you Sydney, but please, let me - "  
  
Flying through the air, she's up in his face, frantic and concentrated in her effort to force him onto the ground.  
  
" This is the last time I am going to ask you this, who are you? How do you know about SD-6? Did someone order you to kidnap me-"  
  
" Wait, wait," he is backing away from her, attempting to deflect her aggression. She circles around him. " I'm with the CIA. My name is Michael Vaughn, I am your handler in your double agent mission to take down SD-6"  
  
Genuinely perplexed, she stares at him. She's done with her dance around him and is now very still. Agent Vaughn. CIA...double agent?  
  
" The story you're telling me is utter bullshit. I work for the CIA. SD-6 is a division of the CIA, and I-"  
  
Shit. Biting her lips, she realizes the words she has just spoken. Fuck, this is a test. A test to see if she would break protocol again and she's done it. Now this " Agent Vaughn" is going to pull out his gun and shoot her.  
  
" Sydney, you're telling me you don't remember anything?" No gunshot. No instantaneous assassination as expected. Instead there is only him watching her obviously expecting her to say something. She is silent, dumbfounded, not sure anymore where she is and what's she's doing.  
  
" I- I-" She turns from him, the pain inside her head suddenly so intense that tears spring to her eyes. " Can I have that aspirin, now?" She does not shift to face him, only extends a hand behind her. Pills fall into her palm and after checking to see that they are stamped with "Bayer" she dry swallows them, her throat tight and constricted. She is left the bitter sting of aspirin on the rear of her tongue.  
  
" Water?" She nods. Such compassion from him, such a believable amount of emotion in his voice. Instead of wanting to leave she wants to know the truth here, she needs to know the reasons that he has her here- whether or not it's his version or not, whatever version he is willing to offer.  
  
She finds the sofa and sinks into it, closing her eyes, blocking out the light, trying to silence the hammering in her head.  
  
" Here" his voice. Not familiar but intimate, as though it ought to be known. He hands her a cold glass and she takes great, gulping swallows.  
  
" Thanks" She says, and closes her eyes again." Look, maybe you don't want to talk about this, Sydney, but we have to." Opening her eyes to see his face, the consternation written on his features. The silence grows between them as he patiently waits for her response.  
  
" I do want to talk about this, what was it, Vaughn? If that's even your real name." She averts her gaze down at her hands, clutching the glass between them in a vice-like grip.  
  
" My real name? What kind of agency do you think I work for?" There is genuine amusement in his voice.  
  
" I don't know, maybe the French?" He looks French, in an off-hand way. Certainly he didn't act K- directorate and if he were SD-6 she'd be dead by now.  
  
" The French? I consider that an insult that you would even think I was involved in French espionage. Besides, the espionage bit is mostly your foray."  
  
" Then what is it you do all day long," she pauses and adds with sarcasm " at the CIA?"  
  
" I direct things, mostly."  
  
" You direct things? Like what?" There's distrust in her tone, she does not believe him, despite his benevolent smile and actions that attempt to mislead her.  
  
" Your counter mission is asainst SD-6. I basically sit around and try to think up ways to destroy SD-6, with your help, of course." His voice has gotten softer through his expansion; she wrinkles her brow in confusion. Staring at him a long moment she wonders the implications of his words. He's avoiding her eyes, looking at the beige- cream wall behind her instead.  
  
" Tell me why I should believe this, Vaughn. Tell me why I should trust you. You have unwillingly taken me to your home-"  
  
" You were unconscious!" He interjects with indignation.  
  
" That aside, I never agreed to be taken here. You know classified information about SD-6 that only an SD-6 operative or enemy could know, and on top of that, I've somehow gotten amnesia BEFORE I fell and knocked myself unconscious. You really want me to believe that I work for you and the CIA which is NOT affiliated with SD-6. Can I even begin to tell you how insane this all sounds to me? Can you even comprehend why I just *might* not believe you, here?"  
  
" I understand why you don't believe me Sydney. I don't know what Sloane and McCullough did to you to make you forget the last three months -"  
  
" Three months?" Her heart sinks- three months? There is no way she has known this man Vaughn for three months. " You are asking me to believe that I don't remember three months of my life?"  
  
" I can prove it to you." He stands, moving towards her. Vaughn puts his hands in his pockets and approaches her with confidence." Prove it to me then, " She waves her hands dismissively in the air. She's determined to see this proof only so that she can disprove it, and then she won't feel as bad when she has to kick his ass.  
  
" Come with me, then, Sydney, and let me show you." He stands over her, looking down, his gray- green eyes reflecting an emotion she cannot decipher.  
  
  
  
********end of chapter two******** 


	3. memento mori: chapter three

********CHAPTER THREE********  
  
Vaughn waits for what feels like an eon for Sydney to stand. When she does, there are only a few sparse inches between them, and he is lost in the sensation of being close to her for a moment, a sentiment that Vaughn forces himself to shake away.  
  
" Fine," She says after a long moment. " I'll go with you." He turns from her, heads to the closet by the front door, opens it and extracts her shoes. Handing them to her, he makes a beeline toward his bedroom.  
  
" Put on your shoes, " he throws over his shoulder, and grabs two hats from the upper corner of his bedroom closet.  
  
Sydney's expression is bemused when he returns and tosses a cap at her, which she deftly catches and pulls all of her hair inside it. She's got on heels, a calf link skirt, and suit blouse. She looks out of place and almost amusing with a Mets ball cap perched on the top of her head.  
  
" Do you expect me to go out like this?" She gestures at her attire with her hands. " I think the cap ought to go."  
  
" Really? Well, what if someone recognizes you?" he asks, something he considers a viable threat. She gives him a blank expression.  
  
" Who is going to be following me? Who even knows I'm here?"  
  
He sighs. Not a frustrated sigh, but a slightly beleaguered one that expresses his desire to just convince her that she can trust him. This Sydney - on- edge, shoots him malicious glances and huffs every time he utters something even remotely impossible for her to believe is self- defeating. She refuses to let up, and it both intrigues and confuses him how she can be so impenetrable at times. He's seen her emotional, he's seen her devastated and full of self- doubt, he knows that part of her exists. But tonight there is no sign of that woman; this is a Sydney he is unfamiliar with, a Sydney that is painting him to be her ultimate adversary and it's starting to get under his skin.  
  
" I don't know? Maybe you told SD- 6 you were a double for the CIA, and now they're keeping surveillance, watching for you."  
  
" Deductive reasoning, Vaughn? Well, since you are so adamant about your beliefs, why don't you give me something else to wear? I'll stick out like a sore thumb with this attire in your self delusional world."  
  
" My clothes?" He stutters it almost, catching himself before he's consumed with images of Sydney picking things out from his wardrobe to wear.  
  
" Yeah, your clothes. What, are you …about three inches taller than me? Not much more than that, right?"  
  
" I guess not. Okay, then, you can wear some of my clothes." He watches as she sits and starts to remove the heels from her feet.  
  
" I'll need some shoes, too. What's your size?" Her hair falls forward and her hand grasps her ankle, and God help him but this talk of clothes, shoes and her fingers wrapped around her ankle are making him feel almost lightheaded.  
  
" Vaughn?" There is a sudden return to reality, the living room re- materializes, as well as the impatience mirrored in her eyes. He supposes that he must look like a spaced -out lunatic staring at her feet.  
  
" Uh, I'm an eleven."  
  
" Only a few inches too big. I'll need a few extra pairs of socks, and I'll survive." Shoes now removed, she is again standing, pushing her hair behind her ears.  
  
" Uh, Okay, hold on a second." Retreat to the bedroom, his mind screams, pick out clothes and do not even think about where they are going to end up - it's a struggle in self control, man. Robotically he opens drawers and extracts sweats, a long sleeved green shirt, a few pairs of socks and a slightly scuffed pair of running shoes.  
  
Clothes in a neat pile he hands them to her and points her the direction of the bathroom. She gives a half smile and disappears down the hall, to return a few minutes later dressed in his clothes, clothes that are baggy on her and yet somehow still flattering. She pulls on the cap again and announces that she is ready.  
  
The car ride is almost tense. Sydney stares out the side window, and he steals glances over at her, seeing her morose reflection in the glass plate. He drives, drumming fingers on the steering wheel nervously, breathing irregularly, thinking of moronic things to say and before opening his mouth to speak he decides against them all.  
  
He parks the car in an underground parking garage and they ride the elevator up to the seventh floor. Once there he motions for her to be quiet, and they enter a side door that reveals a long winding corridor. At the end of it, there is a thick steel door with a keypad and an electronic card reader. Reaching into his back pocket, he shows Sydney the ordinary looking card until he swipes it and surreptitiously types in a fourteen- digit code.  
  
Vaughn's actions still leave sydney nonplussed. The panel light flickers from green to red and the thick doors unlock. He opens it and pulls her inside, the white room suddenly filling with a blazing red infrared light.  
  
" Thus far I'm impressed, Vaughn." Sydney says after the room is returned to stark white. A security checkpoint passed, they can enter another thick door directly in front of them.  
  
" This is my floor, " he tells her, detecting the slight note of pride in his voice. She nods but does not comment. They walk down a silent corridor, and approach a door, " and this is my office."  
  
" Complete with a nameplate." Sydney taps a fingernail on the brass plate announcing his name and title. " Senior Officer?" She looks at him with skepticism.  
  
" You got me that position. Before I met you, I was a lowly junior." He unlocks his office door and ushers Sydney inside. Flicking on the light switch, he gestures for her to sit.  
  
" Wait here for a minute. I'll be right back." He leaves her and walks down another corridor. It's late, past midnight, and the offices are long deserted. The strange echo of his shoes on the polished floor make the halls seem even more empty to him, and he almost feels out of place. He unlocks another door and is again prompted to swipe his innocuous looking swipe-card and enter his pass code. Access granted, and the door opens to a large room filled with filing cabinets. He finds the one he needs and pulls all of Sydney's files, starting from the long handwritten account she had given in September after Taipei all the way through her last mission before Thanksgiving.  
  
Vaughn re-enters his office to find her fiddling with a pencil. She turns and her eyes widen at the sight of the hefty stack of files in his hands.  
  
" This," he says, letting them fall onto his desk with a satisfying smacking sound, " is your proof."  
  
She looks at the mound and back up at him. " These files are going to tell me why SD-6 isn't part of the CIA and why I'm a double agent working under you?"  
  
" No." He picks a file off the top of the pile and hands it to her.  
  
" You're going to tell yourself."  
  
With a quizzical look on her face, Sydney frowns. She runs her finger along the edge of the file in her hands, her dossier, complete with numerous pages filled with her loopy, near- perfect handwriting.  
  
" I'm going to give you a while to read these. When you're finished, just open the door."  
  
" Vaughn," Sydney's voice is soft, vulnerable. He can tell that she is suddenly afraid that he is telling the truth, and he hates that she is about to relive the roller coaster of emotions that she had the first time she'd learned SD-6 was a counterfeit agency. This time, instead of having the experience of discovery, she now has to read her own words transcribing the events that lead her to discover SD-6's true identity over three months ago and somehow vicariously process it all. He doesn't envy her position, and all at once he is nervous that he's made a terrible choice bringing her here in the middle of the night to read these files.  
  
" Yeah, Sydney." Unconsciously his decibel level mimics hers, and he can hear the softness in the way he says her name. Admonishment fills him, hell, she no longer even knows him-  
  
" I'm going to owe you an apology if you're about to prove me wrong."  
  
He closes the door without answering, leaning against it for a moment, breathing in and out erratically. I need to get a grip, he thinks inwardly. Walking down the hallway he's filled with feelings that make him want to turn his mind off almost permanently. She has no memory of the CIA, none. Thoughts match speed with each echo of his footfalls, walking delirious circles, trying to piece everything together and coming back to the same phrase: she has no memory.  
  
And she doesn't remember you.  
  
Two hours pass like this, the conversations with himself getting infinitely more profound with each passing moment. He never admitted it to himself or anyone else but if he had one weakness, one thing that could hold him mesmerized, it had to be her, the woman sitting in his office right now. How he ever allowed it to happen eludes him, how he managed to become so wrapped up in her is becoming an eternal question in his mind.  
  
" This is so stupid, Vaughn." He utters, and he knows it is - at least he knows it. Any moment with her is a stolen moment, and second that he thinks he feels something between them he knows it's a figment of his adolescent imagination. I'm thirty two years old, he thinks with utter contempt. Thirty two year old men are not supposed to have infatuations with women who are either a, untouchable, or b, whom happens to not remember you in the least sense of the world. If anything, she probably has a poor impression of you --  
  
The mindless brutality of it has to stop before he drives himself insane, and for the millionth time he crosses the corridor towards his office and instead of finding the door closed it is now cracked open.  
  
He pushes the door forward slightly, and Sydney's back is to him, the same as it had been hours before when he had left her. She does not turn, but he can see her shoulders shaking. Senseless dismay fills him, and he rounds the corner to confirm his suspicion that he'd made a bad decision bringing her here tonight. Her eyes are rimmed with red and sparkling with unshed tears.  
  
" I owe you that apology, agent Vaughn." Sydney says, her voice hoarse from emotion.  
  
" No, you don't. You acted appropriately, Sydney, and I'm proud of you." The words sound empty, but he means them. There is no victorious feeling that she now trusts him again, there is only a dull ache of guilt that is pooling in the center of his chest.  
  
" I tried to kick you. I hit you on the side of the head and you are going to have a bruise in the morning. And I thought you were some kind of crazy person, to top it off -" Her voice rises higher with each word, her lips are quivering and the tears are rolling down her cheeks. He suppresses the urge to touch her, a desire so intense that his fingers burn.  
  
" Don't feel bad about thinking I was crazy. The first time I met you - God, Sydney, I told you this once before, but you don't remember it. When you walked through the front door for the first time your hair was phosphorescent red. It literally glowed from a mile away. And your makeup was smeared and your cheeks were swollen and you had actual blood on the side of your mouth. To top it all of you were wearing this classic black catsuit, total pseudo-spy. The CIA gets tons of crazies, and we're supposed to hear out every account before making any conclusions , but my first impression was that you had no clue where you were and what you were doing. And then I read your account- all 1, 000 pages of it -" the exaggeration produces a slight laugh from her, " "Sydney, I not only knew that you were telling me the truth but that you had something about you that made me have real hope that SD-6 might have finally met it's match."  
  
" How could you think that?" Sydney cries out suddenly, her voice an agonizing sound that causes a tumultuous wave of sentiment to wash over him. " I've destroyed everything. I've gotten people killed, I compromised my identity as a double agent somehow, probably sacrificing my father in the process. I've ruined everything." She puts her head in her hands and her shoulders shake with jarring, disconcerted movement as sobs rack her body. She lifts her face and looks at him, their gazes locked and holding, Sydney's bright and sparkling with tears. They stream down her face, uncontrollably, and she clenches her hands into fists.  
  
" You never should have trusted me, Vaughn. You never should have even given me the chance."  
  
********end of chapter three******** 


	4. Memento Mori: Chapter Four

********Memento Mori ********  
  
  
  
********Chapter Four********  
  
" Sydney- Sydney, What did you just say?" Vaughn is in her face, hands on her shoulders, almost shaking her, repeating her name over and over and for a moment she cannot breathe.  
  
" I--" She can't speak either, because there is no oxygen in her lungs, there is nothing but a heat that surges up her throat, choking her. Hiccups, fierce, her sobs consuming her, silent, wracking sobs -- I CAN NOT BREATHE running through her mind, not acknowledging Vaughn in her face, his eyes locked on her, his expression--  
  
" Sydney. Sydney. I need you to focus. I need you to breathe, Sydney-- Breathe!" Vaughn's voice is so commanding, Sydney thinks, he's really an ass at times. She closes her eyes, blocking his face, blocking out everything but her heartbeat, the thumping filling her ears, drowning everything else out completely.  
  
This, she knows, is shock. In several cultures it is known as koro, sometimes translated as fear: a figment of the metaphysical realm that strikes without warning. An emotion that can be totally virulent upon the mind and body. Sydney remembers this illogically , and she now understands what she once found incredulous when taught in some distant Anthropology class. Nevertheless, the emotion does exist, shock has a power to paralyze the mind and body and she has been struck with the most horrible feeling in all of her life. This feeling that she knows originated with Danny's death and has been feeding her every action during past few months. It fuels her, keeps her driven to destroy, to exact revenge on SD-6 and all for which it stands. The realization of this shocks her, it makes her numb. She can't believe it and yet, she can that her seemingly heroic mission is driven by such self absorption and pain.  
  
The emotions are intense, and at some point she realizes that she is crying and Vaughn is not there. Alarmed, she opens her eyes and looks around her. This place is unfamiliar to her, and that frustrates her. How many times had she been here, sitting in this chair...before.... Vaughn appears at the door behind her, his hands filled with a can or something, a cup maybe..  
  
God, she thinks. Oh my God. Please, please, someone help me.... Irrational thoughts, and she knows, SHE KNOWS, she is going to have to start thinking logically again, and soon.  
  
" Sydney." Vaughn again is talking to her, his tone tempered, placating, almost frightened.  
  
" Please, drink this." He hands her a glass and she takes it, and after a long moment she forces herself to drink it, the glass jarring en route to her mouth because of her unstable hands.  
  
" Thank you, " She says after a moment. Her voice is raw, hoarse and nearly inaudible.  
  
" I need you to talk to me, Sydney. I need to ask you a question, a very important question. Okay?"  
  
He is talking to her like she is a child, and it almost annoys her. But she knows his intentions are good, no doubt he is wondering about her recent near nervous breakdown.  
  
" What time is it?"  
  
" What?" His face reflects genuine confusion.  
  
" What time is it?" She repeats the question, pasting a feigned smile on her face that she hopes convinces him that she is going to be okay.  
  
" A quarter past four in the morning. People are going to be coming into work,and we'll have to leave soon, at least until I think of what we are going to do next. But before we go you need to answer something for me." He is again intense, and it startles her, the way he can change his personality to one extreme to another in a mere matter of seconds.  
  
" Okay." She nods, taking another sip, still shaken, nerves still left exposed.  
  
" How did you know about your father?" His face is ashen, and she detects a sense of fear from him.  
  
" I don't know what you mean, what about my father?" Sydney stares into her cup. Her father, the man she so always wanted to be her hero, after her mother had died. Her mother. Sydney could feel her face fall as she thought of her, her beautiful mother...  
  
And what had happened to her mother.....  
  
" You said, before you-- well, before, you said that you probably sacrificed your father in the process. What did you mean by that?"  
  
" My father, " instantaneous tears come to her eyes and it stings them, making them even more red from the over-exertions of her tear ducts . " My father is a double agent for the CIA, too. I know that. I don't know how I know that but I do. When I was reading those files it came to me, I could see him in my mind, I could hear his voice. I knew, I just knew. And I know other things, other things about my father that make me believe he had something to do with my mother's death."  
  
" How could you know that without knowing me, Sydney? How could you remember that and not anything about your work with the CIA? It doesn't make any sense to me."  
  
"I don't know how I know that. What else could I know? Ask me questions." Sydney is earnest, serious, and Vaughn seems skeptical over her behavior. She can't blame him, either.  
  
" You know what I should be doing right now, don't you Sydney? I should be calling Devlin, and telling him exactly what I fear is going on here. That you remember bits and pieces of a past that is very dangerous for you to only have partial knowledge of. I don't want to do that, Sydney. I don't want to make that phone call right now. " He sinks into his chair and puts his head in his hands. She watches him for a moment and then rises, inexplicably drawn to him.  
  
Sydney reaches Vaughn, who does not move from his locked position and ignores the intrusion of his personal space. She kneels in front of him, nearly eye level.  
  
" Vaughn, " She says, and he moves his hands away from his face and looks at her. She pauses, looking into his eyes and finding so many colors there, so many tiny flecks of light. " I want to know everything, Vaughn. I want to know why I don't remember certain things. I want to know the things I do remember, and then maybe we'll know the reason they erased part of my memory. I need you to help me. Please, Vaughn, please." She does not waver her stance or remove her eyes from his face; the moment that stretches between them becomes suddenly charged, and she is overcome with a profound sensation of something like gravity.  
  
" Sydney." There, there, Sydney can hear it, hear it in the way he says her name. What is it about him? Why does he look at her like he does, why do his expressions change like the weather and why does he say her name like it's an epiphany to him?  
  
" We need to get out of here." Moment broken, Vaughn is rolling his seat away from her, and she stands, legs still unsteady.  
  
" I have to go and return these files. Not that they won't know I took them, I'm pretty sure I'll be on surveillance. But we can discuss that later. I'll be right back. Stay here, but with the lights off."  
  
Sydney nods and flicks the light switch behind her, enveloping herself in the silent darkness. It feels pleasant after the past few hours. It's almost tranquil and very soothing. The minutes in the dark are their own type of solace in itself, and she can feel her nerves restoring themselves; she can once again think rationally.  
  
Vaughn is suddenly back at the door. She can see the glisten of sweat beading on his brow, the tension around his eyes and in his muscles. His anxiety was evident in the way he grips her arm almost forcibly.  
  
" Let's go." He says in an undertone. She follows him down the same maze of corridors, and they leave the CIA, get into his car and leave the parking garage, without speaking to each other the entire ride back to the apartment. Sydney's mind is blank and dense all at once, and the sludge is too thick for her to even wander through the mass of thoughts and emotions that she now carries within her.  
  
Once inside,Vaughn storms through his apartment, leaving her standing in the center of the living room, wearing an empty expression on her face.  
  
" Okay, how did you know about your dad? That's the heart of it all. I have a gut instinct on this --" Sydney raises a dubious eyebrow and sinks into a chair. Suddenly she's exhausted, tired from the overexertion of her emotions and her gallons of tears.  
  
" I'm not sure. I just did. Like I said before, ask me some questions, things you know that I could possibly know."  
  
" Okay, lets see." He folds himself into the couch opposite her. " I know that your friend Francie got engaged on Thanksgiving."  
  
" I remember that!! It was at my house! I remember that night completely." She smiles at the happy memory for a moment, finding it bright and unforgettable.  
  
" Okay. " He skews his face into a pained expression. " Do you remember the night that your father stood you up for dinner?"  
  
There is an answering ache in the center of her chest. " Yes, I remember that."  
  
" Do you remember what you did after he called and told you he wasn't coming?" Sydney focuses her gaze on the well -polished hardwood floors. There is nothing in her memory, a blank, a missing gap of time that is unexplainable.  
  
" No." She says it softly, wishing she could remember something, anything. Vaughn sighs heavily, and when she looks at him he is wearing a wistful expression, faraway and dreamy.  
  
" I think SD-6 is using you to extract secrets from whomever they think you are working for. Sloane might suspect CIA, but then again, you might have told him that you work for the Agency already."  
  
" I would never do that!"  
  
" I don't mean willingly, Sydney. McCullough is known for his sadistic tricks on the mind. He's a mad - scientist kind of genius. Either way, he's got you on some program to only remember your missions with SD-6 and nothing about your double-agent work. CIA Psych will have to evaluate the severity of this, tomorrow."  
  
" Are you kidding?" Sydney's voice nearly gave." Psych? You can't tell the CIA this--"  
  
" I have a friend in psych, Sydney. I can trust her to give a fair appraisal and to not say anything about it."  
  
" Okay" She replies after a prolonged moment of silence as she mulls things over. Once her decision is made, however, she closes her eyes and yawns.  
  
" Why don't you get some sleep." Vaughn suggests. " Please, continue to use my bedroom. I'm going to take out Milton."  
  
" Milton?" Her voice is quizzical, and she waits for him to answer before rising.  
  
" My dog."  
  
" You have a dog? Where is he? I haven't even heard a dog. Are you kidding me?"  
  
" No, his spacious home is a dog house in my office. Right around  
  
now," He says, gesturing towards the clock that reads well after the quarter mark of five in the morning, " he's ready to go on his morning run. I'll skip the run but I'd be negligent not to take him on a sufficient walk."  
  
" Okay, sure" Vaughn disappears and within moments an English bulldog comes bounding down the hallway, straight towards Sydney, wriggling it's its rear in obvious affection. She kneels to pet him- Milton, what a strange name-- and lets him lick her face. For a moment, there is a sense of contentment, a strange and unique bliss that descends on her and makes her feel that somehow, someway, everything is going to be all right.  
  
Vaughn emerges, sans cap, hair disheveled. Sydney watches him walk down the hall and then reverts her gaze, back to Milton. They leave together unceremoniously a few moments later, and Sydney finds her way back into Vaughn's bedroom.  
  
His apartment is so dark- she thinks inwardly. Not that it should be bright, because it shouldn't be, she muses. Not sunny and airy like her house -his apartment seems perpetually dim. She opens the closet door and tosses Vaughn's oversized sneakers into the closet, and in the process manages to knock over a small stack of unseen boxes.  
  
She squats to the floor and restacks them, frowning over a few pieces of paper that slid from the top box that had fallen and were slightly crumpled by the weight of the shoe. She picks it up and unfolds it, smooths out the edges, and intends to return it until she sees the neat and artsy handwriting of a letter addressed to " Michael" -- Vaughn. She reads the first sentence before logic and manners tell her to stop. " By the time you read this letter..."  
  
Heavy opener, Sydney thinks with instantaneous curiosity. Although her hands itch with desire to read the rest of the letter propriety stops her and she refolds it, puts it back in it's box and scoots away from the closet door as quickly as possible.  
  
She pulls the cap from her head and lays it neatly on top of a nearby dresser, and waits to hear Vaughn come through the door, suddenly nervous and apprehensive and feeling a definite twinge of guilt for her rude investigation into his private life.  
  
" Once a spy, always a spy." She thinks to herself, and despite the altogether horrible nature of the past few hours, she manages to put a genuine smile on her face.  
  
There is a soft rap at the door and Vaughn peeks his head in. " I just wanted to say goodnight, even if it is nearly five in the morning. I'm sorry I haven't got an extra toothbrush or anything."  
  
Again he is reverted back to being sensitive, caring, affable Michael Vaughn, the take charge, give orders image absorbed in this other personality. It's certainly the more likable one she thinks, and smiles at him.  
  
" That's okay. I don't think my teeth will fall out over one day of no brushing. "  
  
He smiles again, his face warm." Well, sleep well."  
  
" Don't you need some pillows or something?"  
  
" No. I'm fine." She feels compelled to say something; to thank him, to get rid of this huge lump forming in her chest, but before she can say anything he turns , the door closes, and she still sits on the side of his bed, frozen, staring into space.  
  
She remains this way for many minutes, angst pooling in the pit of her abdomen and sweat beginning to form in the center of her palms. She glances around the room, letting her fingers splay on the cool goose down comforter behind her that drapes his bed. How strange, she thinks, to be about to sleep in the bed of a man that she hardly knows with consent this time instead of being placed there while unconscious. Her body begs her to succumb to the pillowy softness, though her mind remains focused on the folded pages inside Vaughn's closet.  
  
Sydney stands, feet moving by sheer mind control only. Lithe, cat-like steps creep across the floor to the closet soundlessly. Her fingers touch the cool wood of the doors and she suppresses a grin as she opens them without a creak. I can't believe I'm doing this, she thinks, feeling a trickle of sweat on the side of her face, one she does not wipe away until safely inside the softly lit haven of his closet, the smell of starch and leather filling her nostrils.  
  
Closing her eyes for just a moment she attempts to gain control of her racing heart and heavy breathing. Why am I doing this? She asks herself, her moral nature and curiosity waging a bitter battle from within. Curiosity wins out; in a heartbeat she sinks to the floor without sound and opens the top box, extracting the folded pages from within and unfolding them with bated breath.  
  
When her eyes hit the page they instantly begin to process the information before her. She scans the page as quickly and proficiently as she had memorized the Rimbaldi code she commits the words before her to permanent memory. The reaction is an unconscious one, it is a part of her that takes over for a moment without premeditation. Satisfied with the first page she turns it over neatly, careful to not wrinkle it, cautious of where her fingers fall. Before she sees words she sees the soft blur of blue on this page, the telltale evidence of teardrops on ink hastily wiped away. She blinks away the remorse that clouds her vision and continues to read. Her eyes give pause a second time when they fall upon something wholly unexpected: her name.  
  
Frozen the letter drops in her hands, and she is not together sure if she should continue reading or take a moment to process the information that she now amassed. her mind letters become words, words form sentences with blurred punctuation that eventually form paragraphs. From ominous beginning the letter unfolds in her head, each point becoming clear, each word having more meaning than the last. "Dear Michael," it says," by the time you read this I will be gone. I know, I know, it's a cliche- but did you expect anything less? Often you have asked me to come to you with my problems instead of writing them in a one sided letter, but honestly, I could not say any of these things to your face, I could not commit to words verbally the things I am about to write; I'd lose my resolve and spend another nine weeks in denial. That's about the length of time I've known that things were in trouble with us, when the fights started, when you stopped looking at me."  
  
Sydney does not want to assimilate the information crowding her mind; she futilely wishes that she had not come over to the closet in the first place, and, that she should have been more conscious of the consequences of her actions. Page two, nerves standing again on edge, an even more poignant sense of awareness.  
  
Page two. Begin at the start of the paragraph, Sydney, and not with your name-- it's difficult. She reads with caution, with mind-numbing control. " I doubt you remember that you forgot to erase the message, Michael"-- and the rest becomes memory with each word:" I came over as we had planned, because you knew I had a long day that day. I showed up and you weren't there. It was late, and I looked for a note, or something. I thought at first you were out, and then I saw the message light blinking. I pressed play, and the feeling I've had for all these weeks -- the void between us, it suddenly had a voice behind it. A woman, crying, telling you that she was sorry to call you at home, and then you picked up the phone, and it was in your voice, Michael, when you gave the end of our relationship a reason, you gave it a name, and that name was Sydney."  
  
Sydney. Her heart sinks, her hands now moist with perspiration and her head swimming with unanswerable questions. She remembers Vaughn's question, his " Do you remember the night that your father stood you up for dinner?"  
  
  
  
  
  
What happened that night? She reads on, undaunted now, needing to continue, finding purpose. The words were jumping from the page, urging her to finish. Loopy blue ink begins the next paragraph, a bold and poignant" 'I' heard you say that name and in that moment I knew, I knew  
  
you were felt something for that woman, that Sydney. It wasn't that you asked her where to meet you and that you stayed on the line a moment after she hung up and you had this breath, Michael- it was more of a sigh than anything, it had such anguish in it. You sounded so tortured! It was over in that instant. I knew, just in that little moment on tape that you and I were never going to get married, we were never going to have a future, because you didn't want that with me. I can only presume that you want that with this woman, this Sydney. Why else would you come at her beck and call in the middle of the night when you knew your girlfriend was coming over. In my mind, it was over. And so I wrote half of this letter and I packed up the things I cared about taking with me, and by now I will be out out of your life. I don't want the phone call you are going to want to make. I don't want your attempt to smooth things over. There's no way I can even change my mind, and you know I am right. You're a good man, Michael, and I love you. I mean that. Alice.  
  
Alice. The name is unfamiliar but Alice, whomever she is, is now a part of Sydney's memory. And apparently, by the looks of this letter, she can blame herself for dragging down someone else before she lost her memory, Vaughn's now ex-girlfriend, Alice.  
  
Sydney refolds the letter and tucks it back into the box. She unfolds her body gracefully, artfully stretching from her toes. The escape is as soundless and effortless as it had been upon her arrival, but her footsteps have slowed with the gravity of the words that she has just forced herself to memorize.  
  
She finds the bed and sinks onto it, shrugs and decides to lie back into the soft down of the comforter. Clenching her eyes tight, she drives out all the light from the room and the clamor of questions in her mind.  
  
" What have I gotten myself into?" Sydney whispers to the empty room, her question hanging in the air, unanswered. 


	5. 5

MEMENTO MORI: CHAPTER FIVE:  
  
  
  
Vaughn opens his eyes to find himself on the couch, muscles cramped and aching from his compressed position. It take s a moment for him to recall exactly the reason for his sleeping on the couch; the last time was after his last fight with Alice and a brutal night of heavy drinking.  
  
He's up, detecting the faint aroma of coffee wafting from the kitchen : Sydney.  
  
Vaughn falls back into the couch, letting his head smack against the semi- soft pillow. She spent the night in his bed, wrapped up in his sheets...  
  
" Shit." He mutters under his breath and tosses back the old quilt that had spent the past few hours nestled within. His bare feet recoil against the cold hardwood floor as he stands and walks down the hallway leading to the bathroom.  
  
The reflection in the mirror is almost frightening : hair askew on his head, the line of stubble along his jaw. He drags a hand through his hair in a half-effort to restore some semblance of order. After brushing his teeth he decides to investigate the coffee he'd smelled moments before.  
  
Outside the kitchen door Vaughn pauses and watches Sydney. Her back is to him, she's mixing something in a bowl. He can tell that she's showered by the dark, damp hair clinging to her neck. She's wearing one of his oversized tee shirts that consume her muscular arms and some shorts that are short enough to reveal her athletic legs  
  
He swallows and she turns - for a moment he convinces himself that her hearing is so acute that she could actually hear him watching her.  
  
" Good Morning" She smiles and it's electric, enigmatic.  
  
" Morning" His reply sounds awkward, and he feels strange, standing in his kitchen with her in it.  
  
" How about coffee- I just made a pot. I hope you don't mind that I've taken advantage of your kitchen. I figured that you liked everything in your refrigerator, so I took the liberty of making breakfast."  
  
" I don't mind at all, though, you are the guest in my house and I should be doing the cooking. But I won't object. Can I help you with anything?"  
  
She laughs " You can have a cup of coffee."  
  
He gives her a blank look as his mind turns. Where is the Sydney from yesterday, blasting accusations and refusing to trust him. Or the emotional, overwrought Sydney that had been consumed in despair. Both of those women had been replaced with a Sydney he finds familiar.  
  
" Okay. I'll have some coffee." He makes his tone light, hiding this strange fascination with the facets of her personality. He pours himself a cup and attempts to quit watching her, convincing himself that there is nothing captivating or interesting in the way she breaks an egg on the side of the bowl and scrambles it.  
  
This, he thinks, is definitely not healthy.  
  
Milton, he sees, is comfortably sprawled beneath the kitchen table. He raises a lazy eye to his owner and then resumes his sleep.  
  
"I only wish I were as nonchalant as you, my friend." He mumbles under his breath and tosses a look at Sydney.  
  
" What?" She asks.  
  
" Dog talk. Milton is my roommate, and I have a certain affinity for long winded one sided conversations with him."  
  
God, her smile, is it insane that he lo- likes that smile so much, that that that her smile captures the essence of all that is Sydney to him. It reflects the essence of her courage, her bravery, her fearlessness and determination -  
  
" Vaughn?"  
  
" Huh?"  
  
" I asked if you liked cheese in your omlette?"  
  
" Oh? Oh, yes. An omlette without cheese is not an omlette." This is the type of conversation years of college education has bought. Stupid, stupid, stupid.  
  
She stares at him for a moment, something, clouding her face; is it consternation? He's caught in that gaze-he almost finds it unnerving. She shrugs and turns to finish the eggs, and he sighs and sits, moodily staring into his cup of coffee, searching for answers.  
  
Vaughn isurprised when his thoughts suddenly shift to Alice. She's been gone for less than a month and yet it seems so much longer than that to him. He thought he would miss her more, thought her absence would prove to be more of a painful experience than a mild sensation of relief. He's ashamed of the lack of guilt he felt when Alice's ghost should still be haunting his thoughts.  
  
Although it shames him, he's glad she isn't here. There would have been no way to explain to her why Sydney was at his apartment, why she'd spent the night there. It would have been painful, and damaging, and dangerous for Sydney and their cover. He thinks that Alice's insecurities are no longer the compass of his emotions.  
  
So it's good, he thinks, and he should stop feeling so guilty about it. He sips his coffee, savoring the aroma, clearing the thoughts of Alice and their failed relationship. Sydney is here and for now her past with the CIA is the only thing that matters to him.  
  
" Okay. Everything's ready. Where can I find plates?" He rises and moves to help her. The moments that follow are strange and surreal, the two of them in his kitchen, preparing breakfast, talking, laughing.  
  
Like ordinary people.  
  
But nothing about this is ordinary, Vaughn. You can't appreciate something as yours when it is something you can never have.*I'm her handler,* he tells himself.  
  
Sydney fills his plate with a huge omlette and thick pieces of toast. " This looks incredible, thanks Sydney."  
  
" I just needed to-" she pauses to pull out a chair and get herself situated in it. " I needed to do something for you, as a token, a reparation-" She shrugs, cheeks almost flushed- " I guess just a thank you."  
  
" You don't have to thank me for anything, Syd. " he takes a forkful of omlette, chews and swallows.  
  
" Delicious."  
  
" It's just an omlette" Her tone is maudlin, but she raises her head and smiles. " stop being over gratuitous!"  
  
" I don't get breakfast cooked for me very often. I have to show some sort of appreciation for it."  
  
The look she gives him is mysterious, beguiling, sexy. " You are a very interesting man, do you know that?"  
  
" I'm told that often." Their banter is carefree, easy light. It's apparent that they are avoiding the events of earlier hours of the morning.  
  
He glances at the clock. It's barely ten in the morning, which means he got less than 5 hours sleep on the torture device of his couch.  
  
" Did you sleep well? " he asks, hoping she'd been comfortable in his bed. The image of her hair splayed on his pillow suddenly fills his head unbidden. He blinks it away.  
  
" I didn't. There were too many things running through my head last night, it kept me awake thinking about it." Sydney reaches for her orange juice and takes a long drink.  
  
" You read a lot last night" He's alarmed when she almost chokes on her juice.  
  
" What?" She sputters.  
  
"Those files. I know it was a lot for you to read them. " He watches with veiled scrutiny as she perceptibly restores her composure.  
  
" Yes I did, and you're right, it was very difficult. Do you hear that?"  
  
" Hear what?" She motions for him to be silent. He can't hear a thing.  
  
" My cell phone." Sydney launches from her seat. " Where's my cell phone,Vaughn?"  
  
" Hall closet, I swear, your ears -" He follows her to the closet and she opens the door, stoops inside, and extracts her bag. The ringing increases in volume, and she finally answers it before the sound became almost intolerable.  
  
" Hello" he watches as her face falls.  
  
" Sloane, Uh, hi" Her reply is breathless, and Vaughn's heart plummets to the ground. Sloane. Vaughn waits for the conversation on Sydney's end to resume.  
  
" Yeah, well, I left the bank last night to have a few drinks before going home. " There is a brief pause, then " You know, to start off my vacation"  
  
He's impressed with her easy ability to lie without breaking a sweat. " Actually, I, uh didn't wind up coming home last night..........yes, yes, my car, I left it.........well, I actually met someone, and I decided to go home with them " Vaughns eyes widen as she continues in a low tone " if you know what I mean."  
  
Vaughn does not break his piercing gaze. What the hell is she telling Sloane, and what will his response he?  
  
" No, no, nothing like that, I assure you...... An hour? ....Sure, an hour is fine......No, I don't need a ride, but thanks for asking.......Sure, sure.....are you serious? ......well, okay, then, fine. I'll see you at the meeting."  
  
She ends the call and begins speaking in a rush. " So I suppose that you could ascertain that I am due at Credit Dauphine in an hour for a briefing. Apparently, my vacation has just been cancelled. Sloane claims something's come up."  
  
" You can't go to Sd-6, Sydney." He says forcibly, passionately.  
  
" Excuse me?" Her eyes narrow and he can feel the mood shift between them.  
  
" Absolutely not; I need to call Devlin and tell him what's going on, and when he gives expressed approval, then-"  
  
" You're my handler, not Devlin." Sydney interjects.  
  
" It doesn't work that way Sydney - and besides, I'm not sure I like the idea of you walking into Sd-6 mere hours after you've read highly classified CIA documents."  
  
" So you don't trust me, then." Sydney's tone is fierce, and he is irritated by the determination he'd admired only moments before.  
  
" I trust you, Sydney. I don't trust Sloane and McCullough. They've manipulated your mind and as far as I know they have every intention of extracting whatever information that they wish from you, no matter how much you try to stop them."  
  
" If I don't go to Sd-6 Then they are going to suspect something, Vaughn. I can't just *not* show up for a briefing, it's a red flag." She's right, if she doesn't show up for that meeting in an hour then they might kill her. Vaughn comprehends the gravity of the dilemma and it makes him cringe.  
  
I need to think for just a second." What is it about her, he wonders, that has the ability to drive him absolutely insane? How does she manage to convince him of damned near anything, regardless of the risk to her or anyone else.  
  
" I'm sorry, " Sydney says, " I just think-"  
  
" You're right." he interrupts her." You're absolutely right. I'm probably making a huge mistake here, but- I think you should go."  
  
" Good." She grins, " Because you have to take me there."  
  
" What?" The roar of his voice echoes on the walls and floors. He watches her cringe.  
  
" I alluded to Sloane that I had a one night stand with -- you."  
  
" I can't actually take you, Sydney. That's insane. You might have told them who I was-"  
  
" How likely is that?"  
  
" Likely, Sydney" He gives her a grim look that he hopes reflects his disappointment in her actions.  
  
" Sloane insists" Sydney passes him a pleading stare.  
  
" it's going to put both of us in danger, Sydney. We'll be seen together at SD-6 headquarters. It's stupid, it's a possible deathtrap for the both of us."  
  
" Sloane has no reason to suspect you."  
  
"How can you be sure of that?" he demands, angry now, enraged that she'd lied her way into an impossible situation.  
  
She steps forward, and he hates her closeness, the surrender that it taunts him with. He despises the instantaneous pull to her, this seduction that he is sure she is unaware of.  
  
" I can read him. I don't know why, but I have this feeling-"  
  
" Stop" It comes out softer than he intends, and he can see the confusion in her eyes. " You have no clue what Sloane suspects and what he wants from you, Sydney."  
  
She does not move, and his feet feel mired there, in front of her. I'm going to give in, he thinks,. The undercurrent of emotion is consuming him now, and he cannot believe himself. Sydney isn't the stupid one here, it's him. To want to be this close to her is insane, it's pointless, dangerous, a life threatening and unrequited desire. This intimacy of inches, it all meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.  
  
Vaughn forces himself to step away from her. " I'll take you , Sydney, and I won't call Devlin unless I don't hear from you within two hours of my dropping you off at SD-6. That's assuming that you are right and Sloane has no intentions of capturing and eventually killing the both of us, which is certainly a viable possibility."  
  
Hurt reflects in sydney's eyes, and it pains him to witness it. He starts to walk away, but is stopped by the sound of her voice.  
  
" I'm sorry, I just didn't know what to say to him."  
  
" I know you didn't, and I don't mean to be so harsh, Syd."  
  
" You aren't being harsh, Vaughn. Or I at least deserve it. I keep screwing up your life, don't I? I could get you killed today-"  
  
He can't listen to this. The sound of her voice is filled with anguish, a deep despair. " You don't screw up my life. I don't even know why you would think that. We'll see what happens, okay? Go get ready, we'll need to leave in a half-hour."  
  
Sydney nods and moves to his bedroom. Walking down the hall, back into the kitchen he's struck by the reality of the scene before him. Half-eaten plates of food litter the table, discarded in the urgency to answer a life- altering call.  
  
It is far from ordinary, the relationship between them. "Normal" isn't a word that will ever define them. This scene, the peaceful breakfast, had been a farce to begin with. Vaughn picks up the plate, empties the now cold omlettes into the trash and into the sink. After running hot water on them he washes his hands and moves out of the kitchen. Rubbing his eyes he glances at Milton, who still sleeps, oblivious to the tumultuous emotions running through his owners mind.  
  
Vaughn showers, shaves, dresses. Sydney waits for him at the front door, restored to suit and heels, hair now dry and slightly flipped at the ends. With all of her belongings and her purposeful stance for the first time Vaughn can truly see how out of place she is here, in his living room.  
  
She doesn't belong and yet he longs to keep her here, there's an insane desire within him to reiterate the risks, to convince her that they should not leave. If anything happens to her, God, he can't think of that...the dangerous feeling is intoxicating, it sends him into the spiral of doubt that their next move could be fatal. Why doesn't Sydney see that? How could she always be so bold?  
  
" Are you ready?" There is a trace of trepidation in his voice: he knows it's her last chance to change her mind.  
  
" Yes." There is no hesitation in her reply.  
  
They step out the door and he locks it, apprehension growing with every step that he takes. He keeps looking at her, passing sidelong glances that reveal time and time again the same dire expression. He can't help but admire that focus, that determination.  
  
" Two hours" he says when they are almost a mile from Credit Dauphine.  
  
"If I'm still there, I'll call…then I will call and pretend that I've left something at your house. Like my beeper." She glances at herself in the pulldown mirror.  
  
" You don't have a beeper." Vaughn laughs at a memory only he has.  
  
" what? Yes I do- " she rifles through her bag." Did I lose my beeper?"  
  
" In a sense," he replies " you threw it into the Pacific about a month ago." The memory of the night is brief and yet vivid, in so many ways it had been a pivotal night for him, their exchange on the pier.  
  
Her inquiries about the beeper are silenced when the Credit Dauphine sign comes into full view.  
  
" Turn here, " Sydney instructs. " the parking garage. Good, now pull up to that doors, behind this column." Her tone is again forceful, the beeper all but forgotten.  
  
His heart is thundering in his ears and beating a million miles a minute. The garage seems deserted, but there could be snipers anywhere, aiming at his or Sydney's head. His CIA training only lends to his paranoia. Too late to turn back now, he thinks, and puts the car in park.  
  
" They could be watching us. In face, I am sure they are." Sydney scans the garage as she unbuckles her seatbelt.  
  
" Kiss me." She says, and Vaughn'erratic heartbeat stops entirely as he gapes at her.  
  
" Wh- What?" He stammers.  
  
" I spent the night with you last night, remember ? If someone's watching us then I better cement my alibi. Kiss me."  
  
  
  
END CHAPTER FIVE 


	6. memento mori: chapter six

Okay, ya'll: I want you to remember: Alternate Universe, where we all spun off in the beginning of the episode SOO LONG AGO " Time Will Tell"… There's been no Confession, no Spirit, no Box. Keep it all in mind, Kiddies.  
  
Chapters 6 and 7 are going to be a little more confusing and suspenseful, so beware the slight changes  
  
  
  
CHAPTER SIX  
  
"Senior Director Devlin's office, how may I help you?"  
  
"This is Jack Bristow. I need an appointment with Devlin, ASAP."  
  
"I'm afraid Mr. Devlin's schedule is full for the day, how about tomorrow...."  
  
"I don't think you heard me correctly. This is Jack Bristow, and I need an appointment with Devlin in the next hour. Is that clear?"  
  
"One moment, please."  
  
* * *  
  
There is a dull sound thundering in Sydney's ears, it's the sound of his breathing: ragged, an unexpected response on her part. Vaughn is eyeing her; his hazel-green eyes fix on her face, penetrating, intense.  
  
"God, Vaughn," She whispers as she nears him "for a trained agent you're really slacking on the job here."  
  
Sydney's mouth connects with force, to appear for all intents and purposes that she had spent the night with this man in intimate terms, but with the full intention to refrain from any emotional reaction on her part. His lips remain stationary, and she assumes he is afraid to move for much the same reasons as her own.  
  
They remain like that for a moment, mouth against mouth, immobile. She ignores the steady rise of heat from her toes, ignores when his mouth begins to soften, ignores when her own body moves forward and her hand reaches for the base of his neck.  
  
The show, she thinks, is everything. Sydney's heart pounds in her ears as she begins to feel herself melting, the sweet sensation of his hands on her arm, a tentative touch, gentle, and kind. And why; how could she feel this for a man she'd known less than twenty- four hours? How could his fingers traveling up her arm cause such a myriad of poignant reactions all along her spine and her nerve endings  
  
She pulls from his near motionless mouth and dots tiny kisses along his jaw line, licking her lips and leaving the barest sensation of wetness. There is no stubble on his cheeks; there is only smooth, inviting skin beneath her lips. She finds his earlobe and whispers softly.  
  
"The goal here is to convince *them* we spent the night together, Agent Vaughn. It doesn't do much for me when you are remaining damned near statuesque."  
  
His body stiffens as she whispers, and she moves her mouth away from his sensitive ear and makes eye contact. Vaughn's eyes glow an eerie green as he holds hers for a second before he moves forward, bringing his hands to the back of her neck, drawing her closer to him.  
  
His lips crash on hers passionately, no longer stoic and unsure. His impetus surprises her and she sighs, granting his now exploring tongue access to the soft corners of her mouth. Sydney's eyes are still open, but she notices that his have fluttered closed, and her eyelids feel exceptionally heavy in response to his engaging kiss. With some trepidation she surrenders to the need to engage fully in the moment, after a halfhearted argument with herself concerning the importance of keeping up appearances she shuts her eyes.  
  
The swirl of emotion that hovers beneath the surface sends off tiny alarm bells in Sydney's mind that she refuses to acknowledge. Vaughn is intense, his tongue dueling with hers languidly, he pulls away and then delves forward, and she is entranced by his astuteness, his compelling act of kissing her, and she is amazed that it is starting to feel so good, that there is a hot, warm rush of anticipation coiling in her stomach with his every move, his every touch --  
  
She pulls from him, distracted by her own response.  
  
"Good work, Agent Vaughn. Very convincing." She hears herself speak, the wobble in her voice, a sign of flagging confidence mixed with fear.  
  
It takes him a moment to respond. The emotions swimming in his eyes are difficult to read, but she thinks she can detect the thin veil of hurt.  
  
"Two hours, Sydney." He says after a great silence. "Two."  
  
"Sure." She nods, and moves to open the door, ready to escape the choking air inside his cramped front seat.  
  
"Be careful."  
  
She says nothing as she closes the door, walking away, each step faster and faster. She rides the long elevator, not acknowledging her armed escort as she processes the past few moments in her mind.  
  
Admit it, Sydney: her inner voice commands: you felt something.  
  
Retaliatory thoughts are quick and proliferous: You're feeding off emotions that don't exist, Sydney. You're assuming…  
  
What did she assume? That she had caused the breakup of Vaughn and Alice for precisely the reasons that were in that letter? That Vaughn loved her, and that she....  
  
There is no way she loves him. In fact, the whole kiss thing had been odd. Vaughn had been hardly responsive, and when he had it had been in to her challenge. It certainly felt didn't felt like familiar territory for the two of them  
  
The elevator doors open and Sydney strides forward, running a hand through her hair, passing through security clearance and then entering SD- 6 passing down corridors, winding through cubicles she could weave through easily, and with a facade of confidence.  
  
She forces herself to put the kiss far in the back of her mind, compartmentalizing it, refusing to further analyze a kiss that she ordered him to give her. It didn't matter now anyways, at best it served its purpose and at worse it was an attempt to keep her alibi in check. No harm could come from it; at least she hoped that no harm would come from it.  
  
Sydney found the boardroom with Sloane, Marshall, and her father sitting around the thick table all wearing stern expressions. Her father eyes her with particular malice and she offers him a half smile that she flashes at the other two men at the table. Ignoring the nerves jangled in the pit of her stomach she sits and murmurs an apology for running late.  
  
"Its fine, Sydney. It's against my wishes to call you in on vacation, but I am afraid we have a situation. We need you and your father to travel to Zurich to retrieve an important piece in the Rimbaldi puzzle."  
  
"Where's Dixon?" Sydney asks before Sloane has a chance to continue, wondering where her partner was for this mission, and why he wouldn't be on it.  
  
"I let Dixon have the weekend off. I thought you might enjoy some time working with your father."  
  
Sydney nods, lips pursed, eyes fixed forward. Working with her father….  
  
A photo flashes on the screen, black and white of a small cottage in the center of a nondescript Swedish town. "This house holds the missing piece to the Rimbaldi clock that you retrieved at Oxford. We have reason to believe that there is a necessary component in this man's house that will make the clock fully functional." Another picture flashed on the screen of a balding man with pink cheeks and bright blue eyes.  
  
"This man is Richard Englund. He's from Britain, well connected, a member of the Oxford educators society. His area of interest falls in clock making and clocks in general. He recently flew to Zurich to spend the winter working on his newest acquisitions. One of these pieces is a very important glass gear that we believe will bring light to the use for the Rimbaldi clock. Marshall?"  
  
Marshall stood and scrambles through his pockets. "This," he says, extracting a key chain and brandishing it proudly "is a global positioning satellite with complete navigational accuracy. It also has a nearly undetected flip top lid that-" he shows them all the keychain with a star- trek logo on it " I love Star Trek, so I took the liberty of—say, does anyone happen to tape Enterprise? I missed last weeks episode and I really, uh, - well, no? I guess not–" Sydney offers a veiled smile at the unamused Sloane. "Anyways, you take the keychain, and with your nail, Agent Bristow- wait, I haven't gotten to the nail part but—when I do, you'll take it and flip the lid. Inside is a tiny lock decoder that will grant you access to any locks that Englund might have the device in. Just place it on the safe, press the center key and any safe will, well, open after about 37 seconds or so, maybe faster. And then, Agent Bristow, I have these nails for you—they look like press on nails, you put them on like press on nails, but these are very special nails…I uh, hope you like pink. I know it is kind of a girlie color but, I thought you could match it with something—well, I'm not sure. If you don't like the color I could –"  
  
"Marshall, the color is fine" Sloane interjects and looks pointedly at the clock.  
  
"Sure. You just press on the nail, like this, "He demonstrates, taking the backing off a magenta-pink nail and sticks it onto his finger. " The nail seems ordinary, but, they are actually diamond tipped so that you can cut any glass or glass like substance to get into the case that Oxford sealed this special piece in."  
  
He brandishes a nail and shrugs his shoulders "I was going to bring a demo piece of glass but, with the diamond tips being so expensive, I thought, well, I figured your experience – And, uh, let me add that these tips are very, very sharp, and they are only designed for one time usage, so, uh, be really careful with them, okay? I mean, if you were like, well, walking around with them, and " He made a wild gesture of attempting to guard his hands from some unseen object, " It would be impossible, so, don't wear them until, well, you absolutely have to, and".  
  
"That's fine, Marshall. " Marshall sits and fidgets in his chair as he struggles to remove the press on nail.  
  
"Are we clear on the mission? Retrieve the missing Rimbaldi gear and return it to SD-6. Jack, you can be dismissed, but Sydney, if you would remain? Marshall, why don't you go to your office to work on that fingernail? I'd like to speak with Sydney alone, if I may."  
  
Marshall nods and stands, still struggling with the hot pink nail on his way off. Her father exits the room without making eye contact, and Sydney inwardly squirms over her meeting with Sloane.  
  
"I apologize again for calling you back in after I granted you a few days rest. I know you deserve it Sydney."  
  
"It's okay." She forces the waver of fear out of her voice "I don't ever mind being called in. You know how important this job is to me." To Sydney's own ears her words sound very convincing, so convincing that she almost believes them.  
  
"I appreciate that. Now I wanted to know if you remember all that we discussed yesterday." He gives her a smile, a slow, cunning smile that frightens her for a moment.  
  
"I'm not sure what you mean?" Sydney is completely unaware of what he is talking about. All she remembers from yesterday is Sloane telling her to have a nice vacation and Vaughn grabbing her in the alley.  
  
"Nothing." He smiles. "Tell me about your new boyfriend."  
  
The color that creeps up her cheeks is not an act. She looks down and away, and licks her lips "I don't really see why that concerns you. I'd like to keep my personal life…personal."  
  
Sloane's eyebrows arch. "Well, Sydney, you deserve to have some fun. And I can't say I blame you, after Danny, to not want to get involved with discussing anything personal to you in a relationship, right? ."  
  
Her fists ball tightly at the mention of Danny's name, and she steels herself to avoid a biting remark. "You're absolutely right, Sloane." It takes all she has to sit there with a fixed smile on her face.  
  
"I want to wish you luck in Zurich. I don't think you'll need it, you never do. But I do expect that working with your father will be a very positive experience for the both of you."  
  
His voice follows her out the door, and she ignores the sensation of his eyes boring into her as she walks away.  
  
*  
  
"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't imperative." Jack Bristow stalks into Devlin's office and tosses a manila folder onto his desk.  
  
"What's this, Jack?" Devlin sits and folds his hands neatly, avoiding the folder entirely.  
  
" SD-6 is sending Sydney and me on a mission to Zurich to extract a Rimbaldi artifact. When I return I hope that Vaughn will be removed from his position as my daughters handler on the grounds of gross misconduct."  
  
"Jack, we've discussed this a month ago, and Sydney made it impossible for me to keep Lambert on- she demanded Vaughn as her handler. I thought we agreed then that there was no way—"  
  
"I warned you about them, I told you that it was not auspicious for the two of them to be working so closely together. They are too close to the truth and too smart to avoid stumbling upon it. You know Vaughn pulled my files, for Sydney, only because I would presume that she asked him to. It's impossible to keep the past in the past if the two of them continue…"  
  
"There's no evidence that their relationship is progressing into dangerous territory, Jack. Michael has been a fine agent, acting on complete accordance with all aspects of protocol and propriety..."  
  
"Protocol. " He snarls, "If you believe that then I suggest you look inside the folder on your desk now. When you see what's inside, you'll know why I want Sydney out by our return."  
  
  
  
********end chapter six********  
  
  
  
I cried over the small tiny pile of feedback I got on Chapter 5. Did so many of you not like it ? Tell me how much you hate it at : aliasfanfiction@home.com. I'm kidding. PLEASE, PLEASE R/R ( 


	7. chapter seven

A/N: Welcome to chapter seven: sorry it took awhile, but hey, the land of serial writing is sparsely populated and has poor vegetation, and I have been starving for weeks here. So, I came up with some nifty ideas for you guys that I hope you like. Things to remember: While we are existing in an alternate universe, all our friends from later episodes still lurk around CIA offices: like the dreaded, evil snake of a man: Haladki.  
  
Vaughn paces the floors of his apartment, keeping a steady eye on his phone resting on the counter, one hand remaining coiled around the cell in his pocket, impatiently waiting for either to ring. His lips were still burning from the impact of Sydney's, from the warm fire of her mouth that sent a wash of heat down his spine and made him momentarily weak.  
  
The phone rings. He grabs it and answers, hoping his tone is less anticipatory than how he feels. " Vaughn."  
  
" It's Weiss. Listen, man, you need to get down here. Word is that Devlin is about to have a three course meal and your ass is being served as the main dish. Haladki is talking shit about it; supposedly a little bird whispered some big rumor in his ear."  
  
"Shit. I can't leave, I'm waiting for Sydney."  
  
"Whoa, wait there cowboy. Backtrack, waiting for Sydney- where and why? I need specifics and quick."  
  
"I can't get into those right now, Weiss. Sydney's in trouble and I'm the only person she can trust. Devlin is going to have to wait."  
  
"From the way Haladki is crowing I don't think things can wait."  
  
"That son of a bitch has nothing on me, nothing he can prove, anyways." He snaps and then sighs. "I'm sorry to be so reactionary, it's just-"  
  
"I think you should really fill me in on what's going on over there, Vaughn, give me something I can work with over here -" Weiss' sentence is punctuated by the interruption of a loud knocking at Vaughn's door.  
  
"Weiss, someone is at my door, I need to go, I'll call you back, Okay."  
  
"Is it Sydney?"  
  
"No, now-"He ends the call and opens the door. To his surprise Sydney is at the other end, wearing a less than amused expression.  
  
"Telephone calls require telephone numbers, Vaughn. I've got amazing recall, yes, but I have to see some digits to remember first." She moves past him without even making eye contact and compounds the growing fear that today is going to be a very, very bad day. One that ostensibly started quite well, with Sydney Bristow in his clothes, bed and shower, and in his arms, in precisely that order. Now he was being served at banquets and she had no interest in even acknowledging his presence, and he had forgotten to give her his telephone number. Excellent.  
  
"I didn't think about that." He stutters, feeling asinine, childlike, and second-rate. "You weren't followed, were you" he passes a quick glance behind her in a vein attempt to assert that he at least is semi- aware.  
  
She gives him a Cheshire grin and responds with a curt "No." He realizes that she is playing with him, and he offers a tentative smile in response. The moment is broken by the shrill ringing of his cellular, sharp and demanding, incessant and rude.  
  
"Hello" He manages, after a moment, and his heart sinks when he hears the voice at the opposite end: Devlin.  
  
"Mr. Vaughn. I need to see you in my office. Now."  
  
"Mr. Devlin, I'm afraid I can't come in right now, I'm in the middle of a situation,"  
  
"I'm very aware that you are in a situation involving agent Sydney Bristow" Vaughn lifted his eyes to Sydney briefly. "And that is precisely what I would like to discuss with you, immediately."  
  
"Sir, I assure you that .."  
  
"Mr. Vaughn, this isn't the time for protests. I expect you in the next half hour."  
  
"But, I am in the middle of discussing her-"  
  
The line went dead and he curses under his breath.  
  
"What's going on?" Sydney asks and he turns to face her, his expression grim..  
  
"I'm not sure. Devlin seems to know the two of us are together and he thinks something is up."  
  
"What do you mean, `Something is up'" she responded, her tone confused. "Devlin is our boss, right? How could he know about my...problem?"  
  
"Yes, he's our boss, and I don't know. You didn't tell your father, did you?"  
  
"No, but Sloane is sending us together on a mission in Sweden, and he might be able to find out something if I'm not careful."  
  
"I have to tell Devlin the truth if he asks." Vaughn tells her somberly, and waits for her response as he nervously paces the floor.  
  
She nods "I understand. Do you think he knows how could he...?"  
  
"I don't have a clue, Sydney, but Weiss called me and told me Devlin was already pissed at me." He sunk into the nearby couch and could feel her eyes on him.  
  
"I'm nervous for you, Vaughn, but I'm also nervous about this mission. Things just don't seem...right. Sloane has never sent my father and me out together on a mission before... I don't have a good feeling about this."  
  
He raises his eyes to her- they meet and hold. He's reminded of the a moment in his car, his lips on hers, the sensation of heat coiling in his stomach- a sensation he quickly shakes away. "What do you mean?"  
  
She curls her legs beneath her and he is entranced by the expanse of smooth knees. God, I need to get my head in the game, he thinks absently, before removing his eyes from her lower quadrant and back up again to her face. "I just have a bad feeling about this. Sloane wants us to get another piece of the Rimbaldi clock, and I just..." Sydney shifts her gaze and finds a spot on the wall behind her. "I really don't want to do this with him."  
  
"Your dad?"  
  
" Yeah."  
  
"It's going to be alright. Listen, I need to go, its midafternoon and traffic is going to be hell getting down there...stay put. When you get back we'll work out a game plan."  
  
" Vaughn, my flight leaves at 6. That's less than 4 hours away, and it's international. I need to go home and pack, still. Why don't you call me after you get back and give me a breakdown of the meeting?" Standing gracefully, Vaughn is once again almost caught staring at her, her body tight in all the right places, soft where it counted. He's still shaken by the kiss, the kiss that she seems unfazed by but that made him totally weak.  
  
"Okay. I'll call you, just be careful. Don't talk to your friends about this, okay. I'm serious."  
  
Rolling her eyes at him, she snorts and offers a retort "You can't think I am that stupid, right? That brainwashing also took away my entire super spy training?" She gives him another magnetic grin. "Good luck- call me as soon as you know something."  
  
"I will. Wait-" She stops and turns, her hair falling forward, and God, he thinks, she's lovely, just lovely. "Let me give you my cell number." She smiles, that slow, magnetic grin that he cannot replicate and so he smiles, briefly, and jots down a number. She looks at it for second and winks.  
  
"Got it."  
  
A final smile and then she is gone. After he's timed seven minutes he leaves, checking carefully for tails. It takes longer than a half hour to get there, and when he marches up to his department the mood is somber. The glance Weiss shoots him is one of warning; Haladki' is one of mass terror.  
  
Things didn't look good. Judging from the poor reception, Devlin was going to eat him alive, and there could only be one reason. Last night he'd brought Sydney in and accessed classified documents. That had to be the reason that Devlin was going to ream him a new one. Once he explained the situation, though, surely the senior director would understand that his judgement had been sound.  
  
Walking down the hallway Vaughn stopped in his office to surreptitiously check his messages and gather his thoughts. Sitting at his desk he wonders if Devlin will think he acted with propriety, after all. Sydney had been brainwashed to recall nothing about the CIA, which meant she might have disclosed everything about her double agent status. Every man and woman that worked at the agency could be therefore at risk. He bit at his lower lip nervously and finally gathered enough courage to leave his office and seek out Devlin.  
  
He raps on the exterior of Devlin's office and the man looks up, and nods for Vaughn to enter.  
  
"Come in Mr. Vaughn. Not too tardy, I see."  
  
Vaughn sits nervously, sweat pooling on the insides of his palms and his heart beating erratically. He watches as Devlin opens a drawer in his desk and extracts a manila envelope and places it on the desk.  
  
"Do you know what this is, Mr. Vaughn?" Devlin asks conversationally, gesturing at the envelope casually.  
  
"No sir, I don't."  
  
"Jack Bristow brought me this, this morning. He thought I might like to see what his daughter's handler felt about the strict laws of protocol governing him in regards to agent- handler relations"  
  
"I'm afraid I don't understand sir, what's in the envelope?"  
  
"The time will come for that. If I were to ask you to describe to me your feelings for Agent Bristow, how would you go about doing that?"  
  
He could feel his cheeks darken slightly, wondering the angle of this interrogation...what rumor was Jack Bristow spreading....anger wells inside him as he spits a reply, his tone tight and constricted. "I would say that I believe her to be an outstanding agent, one with considerable courage and with excellent field skills and tactics. I'm honored to be assigned as her handler."  
  
"You can go ahead with the envelope now, Michael." Vaughn reacts to the sudden informality on Devlin's part, unknowing what it means but feeling an inner anger over it. He takes the folder tentatively. "You see," Devlin continues "I'm a sensible person, and I don't react without proof. I know that you and Agent Bristow have only been working together for a matter of months..."  
  
His voice fades as the color images slide from the envelope. Sydney, her head in his hands, mouth against his, eyes closed. Shot after shot, there were at least twenty pictures, all depicting the same scene Him kissing her at the bank in the underground parking garage, and what seemed to be her unorchestrated enthusiastic response.  
  
"This isn't what it appears to be." Vaughn interrupts Devlin quickly, tossing the pictures down, erasing the sensations that are recalled with them just as suddenly.  
  
" I find that hard to believe. " His tone is caustic.  
  
"Yesterday SD-6 performed some sort of brainwashing procedure on Sydney. She has no memory of anything: the CIA, me, you, the only thing she seems to recall is that her father was a KGB double agent, working against the CIA and his country. I wanted to call CIA psych as soon as possible but Sloane called and demanded to know where Sydney was. When she hadn't called for her rendezvous after Oxford, I went to make sure she was okay, and I found her, without a memory- when Sloane called I posed as her boyfriend. Sydney told me to kiss her, said SD-6 would be running surveillance - it looks like she was right."  
  
"Vaughn, you have broken protocol by not informing us as soon as any breach occurred. And you went into SD-6 headquarters without clearance. Adding fractious actions with an agent, you have broken a serious list of protocol, here."  
  
"Sydney and her father are being sent on a mission to Sweden together this afternoon. I am the only person that she trusts right now, and you can't remove me as her handler. She's scared and overwhelmed and I don't think she'll go on the mission without someone backing her that she can trust."  
  
"I don't have much choice. You cannot remain on as Sydney's handler until a formal investigation has been held and we can ascertain the validity-"  
  
"There's no way you can send her out on this mission knowing no one from the CIA. She's waiting on me to call her; I'm the only person she knows right now. Her flight leaves in three hours, Mr. Devlin. I assure you. I'm not lying to you. His voice has risen with every word, and he feels as though he might stand. Devlin seems unyielding, and Vaughn is desperate, desperate to prove to him that he has no choice in the matter; Sydney cannot go to Sweden without him as her handler.  
  
"Mr. Vaughn. Give me one good reason that I can trust you right now, when all I have is a stack of evidence in the absolute contrary."  
  
END CHAPTER SEVEN  
  
Sorry for the less than suspenseful ending. I really, really tried. It might not have seemed like I tried, but I did try..Anyways, I did slack on this chapter but I've been trying to be productive in other areas: Creditdauphine.net is nearing completion, I wrote a few other little pieces, and chapter eight of memento mori is actually underway. So, no guarantees, but I hope to have that out to ya'll really soon. 


	8. chapter 8

Memento Mori: Chapter 8  
  
Driving through the streets of LA proves a mind-numbing experience, with each turn causing her to look in her rearview, making sure she isn't being followed. She takes every turn twice, adding an extra thirty minutes to her commute, convinced three cars that follow too closely are SD-6 commissioned.  
  
In the end, she turns onto her street alone, her arms coated in a sheen of sweat, her breathing ragged and still heavy, nerves shot to hell. She leans her head against the steering wheel, unable to move, scared that Will and Francie will be waiting for her inside her apartment, and that she'll have to fabricate some excuse for her absence, again….  
  
"Shit" She mutters under her breath before grabbing her bag and getting out of the truck. It takes all of her energy to stand, to put one foot in front of the other and to keep going. But she does, and is surprised to find the inside of her apartment cool, quiet, and empty.  
  
Setting down her things, she crosses to the answering machine, sees the blinking light, and presses play. The recorder plays back a laughing Francie, reminding her of her visit to her parents over the weekend, sending her love.  
  
She smiles, erases the message, and starts to cry. She'd forgotten the visit , which only proves that there are other things that SD-6 had taken from her, things that extended beyond the CIA and Vaughn and her double- agent status. She sits on a nearby stool, her sobbing noisy in the too- silent apartment, purposeless. After some time the tears change from desperate to angry, and she wipes at them with forceful strokes.  
  
Sydney stands, taking off the rumpled suit jacket. She needs to relax, to recover her perspective, and recoup. Grabbing the telephone she retreats to the bathroom, draws a bath, crumbling in green tea bath cubes. She strips the rest of the clothes from her body and sinks into the hot water, closes her eyes and tries desperately to forget the past twenty four hours.  
  
Forgetting is futile; images play against her eyelids in slow motion and she is powerless to stop them. She sinks beneath the water, holding her breath as long as she can, until the need for oxygen burns her chest. She can't stop remembering, can't stop the slow assault of a million pieces of information that threaten her sanity. And beneath it all, there is her father, his face, his voice, filling her with a cold emotion, something she cannot control and cannot erase. It is so similar to hatred that it frightens her.  
  
To her side, the phone rings, and she prays that it's Vaughn.  
  
*  
  
"Sydney" Her father nods his head as she passes him on the plane. It's under his breath, unheard by other passengers. She tilts her head in response; turns back and mouths a hello.  
  
Civility, she tells herself. Civility. He does not seem to notice that she is forcing the smile, or the fact that she doesn't meet his eyes.  
  
She gets off the plane, crosses the terminal to baggage claim, and waits for her bags to loop around the carousel. Her father comes to stand next to her, saying nothing, not making contact.  
  
Walking towards her bag, he speaks on her return. "I'll meet you at Englund's at nine. If you have problems you know how to reach me."  
  
"Yes." She affirms, and offers a stiff smile.  
  
"Is everything alright?" He wears his concern with such thoughtfulness that she feels a twinge of guilt.  
  
"I'm just tired. It's been a strange couple of days."  
  
"Perhaps we could discuss it, over dinner, afterwards…" He offers a slight smile on his lips.  
  
"Maybe. Nine o'clock, then" There is a brightness in her tone that is false, but she wonders if he believes it's genuine. He seems to, for the smile never leaves his face, a fact that leaves her angry.  
  
*  
  
Vaughn puts down the receiver with a loud clatter and an angry sigh. "Nothing" he mutters, beneath his breath. Sydney's flight leaves in seven minutes and nothing…  
  
Weiss suddenly appears in the doorway, his expression dour. "I've got news: Sydney is on the plane. It's about to leave the gate in about five minutes and I've got a verification that her and Jack Bristow are on board."  
  
"Why didn't wait for me to call her?" Vaughn mutters under his breath, balling his hands into fists. Devlin passes a weary glance between the two men.  
  
"SD-6 has to be using Sydney on this mission," Vaughn gives Devlin a meaningful glance. "I need to be on the next flight to Sweden."  
  
"Are you insane?" Weiss interjects his tone incredulous. "Sir, he's insane."  
  
"Listen to me, Sir. I think that this has something to do with Sydney and her father. I think the Rambaldi artifact is a ruse. Put things together: Sydney only seems to remember information detrimental about her father, and she seemed to me very hostile towards him, and she didn't want to work with him. I think this is an elaborate set-up."  
  
Devlin surveyed the wild-eyed Vaughn and the skeptical Weiss before clearing his throat. "Get Jack Bristow's, handler Robbin's on the phone. I want to know where they are supposed to be conducting this mission, Vaughn. Weiss, find Agent Vaughn the next flight to Sweden."  
  
*  
  
At eight fifty three the cottage Englund was rumored to possess is devoid of all inhabitants, dark and silent. Sydney approached it cautiously, scanning the property for any sign of her father. She is early- purposely so, making sure that the exits that Sloane had briefed her on did in fact exist and were secure in the event that things went wrong.  
  
She peeks into her purse, checking for the clear box that holds the press on nails and the lock descrambler that are tucked there. She takes a steadying breath, and is startled when she hears her father hiss her name behind her.  
  
"Sydney," She turns "are we set? Do you have everything for the counter mission?"  
  
Sydney gives him a blank expression, nodding dumbly. The counter mission. Of course, she had failed to get that. "All he wants is pictures," she lies, and that seems to satisfy him.  
  
" The CIA is unconcerned with Rambaldi. I'm not sure I blame them. I'm going to keep an eye on things out here, but we can keep contact through radio." He hands her an earpiece and she lodges the tiny device in her ear and attaches the microphone.  
  
" The house seems deserted, this should be simple" She whispers, and retreats to the back entrance.  
  
"Do you copy?" His voice comes through loud and clear, and she suppresses a shudder.  
  
"Yes. I'm at the back door now." She pulls lock picks from her purse and deftly unlocks the door. Stepping inside, she navigates to the office where the safe is kept.  
  
"I'm in" She whispers, and finds the hallway that leads directly to the office. "I've found the office."  
  
"Good." He tells her, and she finds the safe. Clicking on a tiny flashlight, she finds the lock descrambler and places against the safe. The device is silent as it unscrambles the safe's code, but after a short time, the front panel flashes access granted.  
  
Sydney reaches with trembling hands to the safe door and pulls it open with trembling fingers.  
  
"Dad..." she says automatically, "I think you should come in here. I need your help."  
  
"What?" His tone is concerned.  
  
She repeats the sentence without emotion, adding a "please" at the end.  
  
"I'm coming."  
  
Her hand curls around the object within the safe, taking it out cautiously. It's cold, heavy, and hard.  
  
"Sydney?" Her father is winded, his voice echoing because he is now in the room. She does not turn but instead remains in front of the safe, frozen.  
  
When she speaks, her voice takes on a strange, broken quality. It borders on a whisper, a sad sound.  
  
"I am sorry that I have to do this. So sorry, but he told me everything. And then he told me what I have to do." She turned, the gun in her hand heavy, the surprise on her fathers face barely registering. "He told me everything, told me that you killed her, how you killed her. How could you do that to her? To me? To us?"  
  
She lifted the gun, held it to his heart, and is amazed that he doesn't move when she pulls the trigger.  
  
  
  
A/N : I know, I know, I am a whore for taking so long to get this chapter out to you. Tell me all about it. Thanks to everyone who has been following along, posting reviews, and keeping me to the grindstone with feedback—I really, really appreciate it!!  
  
Super special thanks to the extra cool Jessica, who betas with the greatest of ease and is apparently like, ivy league good.  
  
Let me know what you think about the twists and turns! Brainwashing sure is a bitch, huh! 


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